Its versus it’s.  I see so many people making this error.

So, these two terms are relatively simple to use.  Proper placement is EVERYTHING here.

Of course, the definition is most important.  To define each of these equally confusing terms, let’s turn to Webster.

“Its” is an adjective.  The term ‘its’ is used to explain something relating to itself.  Here is an example of ‘its’ being used properly.  “The dog placed its final paw print into the flower bed.”

Now, the term ‘it’s’ is a conjunction, you all remember School House Rock:  Conjunction Junction (sings) “what’s your function.” Sure you do, but if you’re in denial, a conjunction is the act of combining, in this case words.

“It’s” is a contraction for  ”It is” and/or “it has”.  For example, “it’s a shame she didn’t think to eat before the wedding, look at that stain!”

Possession is nine tenths of the law and “It Matters How You Say It!”

Conjunction Junction

The original post, “its or it’s” by Pamela Hilliard Owens was originally published on Writing It Right For You
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Pamela Hilliard Owens, M.Ed.

CEO, Head Writer and Editor, Academic and Business Writing and Editing If you need writing or editing assistance with the very confusing English language rules, contact the professionals at Writing It Right For You. We’re here to help because “It Matters How You Say It”!

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After failing to secure additional funding this year and the revelation that they had taken in a paltry $2 million in revenue in 2012, Foursquare was able to secure bank financing to prevent a hasty sale. When Facebook’s Graph Search was released, I assumed that Foursquare’s check-in data would be in high demand as Facebook tried to make Graph Search a more robust product.

I may have been mistaken to think Foursquare was such a hot commodity. This is an infographic from 2011 showing that in Foursquare’s heyday Facebook was getting demonstrably more check-ins than Foursquare (self-disclosure: I had quite a bit of civic responsibility as mayor of many parks and coffee shops in Redmond, Washington). I could be that there’s a qualitative difference in the data between 4SQ and FB, but the likelihood of that is pretty low. Which means that Foursquare is not as attractive acquisition as I thought and that if Graph Search is going to be as robust as Facebook hopes they are going to have to find a way to generate a lot more social signals.

I’m curious about how Foursquare’s future will play out. Let me know what you think about the current state of Foursquare and Graph Search, or of this infographic.

Photo by Pitzyper (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is "social media research," I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred's 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout's most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven't entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.

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Facebook has one billion users, and I think many businesses consider that the end of the conversation when it comes to where they spend their time and effort on social media.

There may be more opportunity or even congruence on other platforms, and that’s what I like about this infographic. I’m not sure that its entirely accurate (that male / female proportion for Facebook appears to skew male?), but I like that it’s attempting to show the advantages of these social networks other than size.

Let me know what you think.

Photo by Kurt Barnett (UNSW Canberra) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is "social media research," I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred's 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout's most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven't entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.

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Would you wear your favorite football hoodie and blue jeans to your cousin’s wedding on Saturday, or to the office on Monday? Of course not!

Is your brand’s content dressed for success?

Just as you’re expected to dress a certain way based on the event you’re attending, your social media friends expect your content to be “dressed” in a certain way too. Let’s take a look at the typical content attire to wear for the audience on these social media channels:

• Facebook – Casual dress expected. Users on this channel love images, making this a great place to visually showcase the personality of your brand as well as add a little humor. Recent reports show Facebook having 1.06 billion monthly active users, including 680 million mobile users, so share your library of professional and amateur photos for fans to interact with. Fans love to share images with their friends, which allows your brand the potential for even greater reach.

• Twitter – Business casual dress expected. With only 140 characters to work with, minus any characters used to attach a picture or link, brands use clever tease lines to encourage followers to click on the accompanying link. This is a great site to push out new and repurposed professional collateral pieces such as white papers, case studies, press releases, new product announcements etc. Use hashtags to create unique search and conversation functions around your brand and include the hashtag on all collateral for customers to join in. 

• LinkedIn – Suit and tie expected.  This is your professional network and needs to be treated a bit more serious. Your brand’s company page and your employee’s profiles should mimic the look and feel of your office. LinkedIn users search for solutions to their problems, so highlight your products and services, the expertise and thought leadership of your staff, and your brand’s digital collateral. Staff pictures should be professionally taken to give a positive first impression of your organization.

• SlideShare – Professional dress preferred. Remember all those presentations your brand has put together? Dig them out, dust them off, and upload them to SlideShare! Remember to share them with your other channels, dressed appropriately of course.

• Pinterest – Professional or casual dress accepted. This is a visually engaging social site that gives your brand huge opportunities to connect and interact with consumers. Use a combination of professional pictures of your product or service, along with amateur shots of customers using them! Or, create boards based on solutions for your customers to show the ease of working with your company. Each company is unique, so add a few boards showing your company’s interests such as innovation, favorite blogs, or products that you love. Allow customers to help create a “Before and After” board to highlight a DIY product. The possibilities are endless!

• Instagram – Casual dress expected. This is another visually engaging social site that is growing daily. Use the smartphone app while on business trips, at trade shows, or during company events and create real time picture stories. The casual atmosphere on this channel allows brand’s to have a lot of fun with customers and colleagues and humanize their company.

Tailor your brand’s message to the social audience it’s being shared with

Regardless of the channel(s) you use or the content you create, always be consistent with your brand’s message and tailor it to the social audience it’s being shared with. Your brand will soon become known as a “social brand” by communicating in the language of your audience and including links to all your social properties. Everything your brand is producing will now be synced creating a “brand omnipresence” and allowing social users to follow your brand from wherever they are.

Share you strategy for dressing your content to specific social channels below in the comments section, we’d love to hear your ideas!

The original article, “Is Your Brand’s Content Dressed for Success?” by Therese Matthys was originally published on theresematthys.com
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Therese Matthys

Certified social media marketing professional helping businesses navigate through the digital world by providing social media strategies and coaching.

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My step father is a Financial Advisor.  He wants to use social media for marketing, but due to his industry being heavily regulated, he doesn’t know where to begin. This blog will serve as a how to use social media for financial service businesses.  I hope it can be useful for other heavily regulated industries too.

How to Use Social Media in the Financial Industry

Use Social Media as Yourself

Regardless of regulation, you still can use social media to talk about your life in a non professional sense.  Post pictures of yourself with your family, on vacation, or doing fun things.  WHY? - Because you will wind up connecting with your clients (and friends) and it will portray you as a likable person.  Also, with every post you make your name could wind up on your clients newsfeeds.  This is a chance for you to remain in the forefront of your clients minds.

Use Social Media To Interact

The other side of the coin is that social media is meant to be social.  So in addition to posting about your life, interact with (engage with) your clients and friends posts too.  On facebook, click like or leave a comment. On twitter, offer up a retweet or send a reply. On Pinterest, repin or leave a comment on pin.  WHY? - Because your contacts are posting things that are floating out there in the ether.  Like everyone else, they check back to see who interacted with their post.  They want you to.  That’s why they put it out there in the first place.  If you take a few moments to interact with others, it says a lot about you.

Please remember that a social media strategy can be more than “how do I use this to advertise my business”.  In regulated industries, use social media to blanket the fact that you are a stand up guy or gal.

So how are you leveraging social media?  Leave a comment below to let me know.

The original post, “Social Media Marketing for Financial Advisors” by Steve Weber was originally published on nepa.social.media
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Photo by Nightscream (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo by Bill Branson (Photographer) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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Steve Weber

A social media and search engine strategist from NEPA. Follow me for social marketing tips, tricks, and hacks!

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You use Ctrl-X to cut and Ctrl-V to paste. You may even use Ctrl-P to print. But how often are you using Ctrl-Alt-M to draft a new Facebook message? Or G-R to see your Twitter mentions?

Courtesy of social media analytics firm Quintly, now you can zip through your social media inboxes a little bit quicker (and with less wear and tear on your mouse).

Let me know what you think about these. Also curious to know if anyone has played the snake game on YouTube…

Photo by thomas (Flickr: Shortcut – Trogir) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is "social media research," I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred's 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout's most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven't entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.

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Call me juvenile, but after seeing this infographic I think all social networks should publish their terms of service in a Portuguese-language infographic.

Let me know what you think.

Foto: Martina Nolte, Lizenz: Creative Commons by-sa-3.0 de [CC-BY-SA-3.0-de], via Wikimedia Commons

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Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is "social media research," I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred's 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout's most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven't entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.

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Google+ got a fancy new update with 46 new features which looks very much like a Pinteresty Facebook but in a very good, user friendly way. Let’s look at some of the new Google+ features. From Google+:

• A multi-column layout. You’ll see one, two, or three columns of content depending on your screen size and orientation.
• Awesome-sized media. Photos and videos can fill the entire width of the stream, making it easier to scan, and nicer to look at.
• Delightful animations. The sharebox bounces, the menus slide, and the cards flip and fade — just to name a few.

When you go in for the first time you will see some screen prompts that tell you about the new look.

Hangouts and chat options are now on the top right corner. Click on the green parenthesis and you will see this new drop down menu.

Photos: your darkroom is now a Google data center

Great pictures aren’t taken, they’re made. And it’s the making part that many of us don’t have time for. We’d all love to have photos that capture our vacations and birthdays and anniversaries the way we remember them. But wonderful images require lots (and lots) of work.

We think everyone should be able to make beautiful photos, so today we’re launching a set of initiatives aimed at improving your photos automatically — basically your camera, plus Google’s cloud. Here’s a few things you’ll enjoy once your pictures are powered by Google:

• Auto Backup (aka Instant Upload). Too many pictures stay stranded on the phone, so with your permission, we’ll automatically back up your mobile pics as you snap them. Everyone receives unlimited free storage at standard size (2048px), and 15GB of free storage at full size (up from 5GB).

• Auto Highlight. Sifting through vacation photos to assemble the perfect album can take hours. Auto Highlight helps you find your favorites faster by de-emphasizing duplicates, blurry images and poor exposures, and focusing instead on pictures with the people you care about, landmarks, and other positive attributes. Simply visit the Photos page, and you’ll see your Highlights ready to share.

• Auto Enhance. Taking a good photo and making it great is a task generally reserved for professional photographers. That’s why, for example, we continue to support and improve tools like the Nik Collection. For everyone else we’re introducing Auto Enhance: a new way to improve brightness, contrast, saturation, structure, noise, focus… and dozens of other factors automatically. Simply upload some photos, then open the lightbox to see Google’s enhancements. And that’s it. (And of course: you can undo the changes at any time.) Here’s some sample images to get you started.

• Auto Awesome. Sometimes we’ll create a brand new image based on a set of photos in your library. For example: if you upload a sequence of photos, we’ll try and animate them automatically. Or if you send us a few family portraits, we’ll find everyone’s best smile, and stitch them together into a single shot. Likewise with panoramas, filmstrips, and a whole lot more. We call these kinds of enhancements Auto Awesome.

The new header menu is very easy to use with tabs along the top.

Communities look a lot different but I love that the guidelines for the community are on the right and easy to use.

This is what it looks like when you’re going to share a new post. Google+ is now going to add related hashtags:

• We’ll look at the post, determine what it’s about, and tag it accordingly.
• Behind the scenes, we’ll also identify and rank relevant conversations across the network.
• When you click on the related hashtag, we’ll flip the card, and let you browse related content inline.

When you click on the sharebox, you get a very cool pop up like this:

What’s hot got a nice update with a little red flame icon and more prominent display.

What do you think of the new Google+ update? I love it and can’t wait to really test all the new features.

The original post, “Google+ gets pretty!” by Peg Fitzpatrick was originally published on PegFitzpatrick.com
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By antmoose (http://flickr.com/photos/antmoose/30866287/) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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Peg Fitzpatrick

Rockin' a positive attitude • Coming at you in 140 or less • Writer • Founder #MyBookClub • Dir of marketing & social media manager • http://www.12most.com

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“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours. If it does not come back, it was never meant to be.”

These days, I can’t read that quote without thinking of Twitter.

The more entrenched you become, the harder it is to break away

Isn’t this exactly what we’re doing when we tweet? We throw a message out to the online world, to be consumed by our followers. It might come back to us as a retweet, or as a reply. On the other hand, it might just as easily become the tweet that makes our followers leave us.

If you’re a steadfast Twitter user, this kind of thinking can be a real source of anxiety. So can the notion that the more entrenched with digital media you become, the harder it is to break away. We’re bound to text messaging and social networking apps, email and blog posts. We tweet and post and pin countless times each day, and with every update we’re setting an expectation among our followers and fans that there’ll be plenty more to come. Not long ago I tweeted that taking an “Internet vacation” seemed far less feasible than taking an actual one. The number of followers that raised their voices in agreement came as a surprise – until I realized that, to varying degrees, it was a sentiment that would resonate with everyone.

This week the New York Times wrote a story on how tech professionals are pulling away from their gadgets from time to lime in favor of, well, living. Robin Sloan – formerly with Twitter, now the author of a lovely book that could reasonably be described as a love letter to print books – said that when he was writing he found it was “more important and productive” to devote his idle minutes to creativity than to e-mails and tweets. Pinterest founder Evan Sharp, meanwhile, admitted that he finds his escape by driving off the grid, where connectedness is traded in for walking, cooking, and meeting “people who don’t work in technology.”

Are these “tech elite” feeling the need to get away because they’re so much more connected than the rest of us? I don’t think so. Odds are good that most of us feel beholden to our digital life. We value it, we appreciate the opportunities for personal and business growth that it provides, but we also need our time away. It isn’t uncommon to see prolific bloggers post that they’re going on a “blog hiatus,” or to log onto Twitter on a Saturday morning to see that people are on a self-imposed weekend “Twitter fast.” And who can blame them? There’s something to be said for looking at the world through your own eyes now and then, as opposed to your iPhone lens.

The fact is that digital media is very tightly interwoven with our everyday lives, and the binds that tie us to it are getting stronger. Ask yourself how much information you would miss out on if you left Facebook; how many photographs and news updates from family and friends would you be leaving behind? And what about communities like Pinterest? If the site was suddenly removed from your life, would you miss the routine of browsing the boards? The knowledge you glean from the pictures? The cultural experience that they provide?

Don’t get digital media wrong: it actually wants to help you live. You can now create a panorama of your life by using Saga, a “lifelogging” mobile app that taps smartphone data on where you’ve been and what you’ve done to create a digital diary. If you prefer to see your life in pictures, then Disney’s Story app is for you; it arranges your smartphone photos and videos into a visual narrative.

Don’t try to please everyone all the time

Digital media wants to help you find (and hang onto) like-minded people, too. If you’re concerned that your tweets aren’t what your followers are looking for, just download mobile app Sayonara. It pushes notifications to your smartphone every time you lose a follower, so you can track exactly which tweet sent them away. Let’s revisit that quote, and alter it for the modern world: If you love social media, use it freely. If people follow you back, they’re yours. If they don’t…maybe your online relationship with them was never meant to be?

So how can you live happily online? For starters, don’t try to please everyone all the time. You have a target audience, and when you find it, this group will embrace you and your content willingly.

Trust your voice. This is the same advice that’s routinely given to aspiring writers: find your unique voice, and stick with it, because for someone out there it will be a perfect fit. Authenticity resonates with everyone. If you post and share content that isn’t consistent with the voice people have come to associate with your personal brand, it won’t ring true.

Prioritize. You may not always have the time to make updates across the board, but determining which sites are most valuable to you – and what kinds of updates will benefit you most – diminishes the stress of feeling like you have to be everywhere at once. Double the reach of your posts by linking your social media accounts (LinkedIn and Twitter, Twitter and Facebook, etc.), and feeding your blog posts into your social site streams. Adopt a management solution like HootSuite, Crowdbooster, or Buffer to streamline your updates.

Give yourself permission to take a rest if you feel like you need it. Leave your smartphone in your pocket sometimes. Resist the urge to document every aspect of your life in pictures. If the idea of going off-grid completely makes your palms sweat, schedule updates to cover you while you’re “away,” or cluster-tweet before you leave (a practice also known as “burstiness”), which some studies indicate can positively impact follower growth.

If you’ve found that magical combination of digital life and the real thing, kudos. Don’t let that go. If you haven’t, don’t worry.

The Web will still be here when you get back.

Illustration by Giuseppe Castiglione [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo by Vladimer Shioshvili (Serenity) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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Tessa Wegert

Tessa Wegert is a freelance journalist, content developer, and marketing strategist specializing in digital media. She manages marketing and communications for Enlighten, one of the first full-service digital agencies, and has contributed to USA Today, The Globe and Mail, Mashable, and Marketing Magazine. You can follow her on Twitter at @tessawegert.

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A new study by Forrester and Kenshoo Social shows that despite the widespread use of organic marketing tactics on social networks, the most effective way to market on social networks is by paid advertising.

You knew this was going to happen, right?

Facebook has ratcheted down brand reach dating back before its EdgeRank algorithm update and Twitter has quietly incorporated a popularity filter into their API. As these platforms have matured, the potential to leverage huge audiences for huge profits has gone largely unrealized. There was a time when businesses could spend a huge budget on creative for a Facebook campaign and Facebook would never see a dime. Don’t expect to hear stories like that anymore. These networks (and their investors) need to start realizing some of that potential. That pressure seems to be driving a lot of recent platform changes.

Here are some key findings about the current state of social media marketing from the study:

○ Marketers use organic posting most often

○ Marketers are most satisfied with ads

○ Promoted content is most effective to drive awareness metrics

○ Paid advertising is most effective to drive sales

○ Marketers aren’t using granular targeting (i.e. interests, weak ties, workplace seniority) to its fullest benefit, utilizing basic demographic targeting instead.

It’s a quite interesting study, and one that offers some very specific takeaways and actions. I also found it interesting that only 33% of responding companies do A/B testing of their content. That’s not good.

And there’s this:

There are few blind spots in this study:

○ Kenshoo is a preferred Facebook advertising partner. This survey reinforces their point-of-view, which isn’t to say that it’s wrong… just that it’s congruent.

○ The companies surveyed spent at least $100K annually on social media advertising, with the majority spending over $500K. I’m always cautious to benchmark huge companies against others because their dynamics and resources are so different. But in this case, the huge sample sizes appear to have relevance to the effectiveness of these tactics.

○ Of course, 105 companies isn’t representative of all businesses.

That said, this study reinforces a point that most people should know and that fewer accept: paid advertising will subsidize “free”services for social users, and the organic marketing tactics that brands have enjoyed during the start-up phase of these tools are the collateral damage of monetization. Consider the conclusion of this study:

“Social marketing can be free…. if you want it to deliver results it shouldn’t be free.”

I’m curious to know your thoughts. Specifically, can Facebook (or Twitter) still drive sales for a business without paid advertising?

By Clarence Coles Phillips (1880-1927) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By Uncredited artist for Loeb-Lion-Felix [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Author information

Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is "social media research," I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred's 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout's most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven't entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.

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